Chapter 3: Infected

A little while later, Louis' chest was wrapped in white bandages. With help from Bill, he stood up and walked down the stairwell.

Bill slung the medical pack over his back and picked up Zoey's crumpled backpack, frowning as he handed it to her. "Why's it so light? I thought we had more food in here."

The former student shook her head worriedly. "We're running low on supplies."

"The situation any better with your backpack, Francis?"

"There's sweet F-A left in here," he replied.

No one had anything to say to the troubling news as they made their way carefully down the stairs.

"Hold up," Louis piped up as the party passed by the apartment from before. "I gotta find me a new shirt."

"I think we've got more pressing matters at hand," Bill replied.

"It'll only take a second," he insisted, disappearing into the doorway.

Zoey followed him through the dark apartment into the master bedroom and watched in silence as he rummaged through the closet.

"Here we go!" Louis cried cheerfully, pulling on a white collared shirt, similar to the one that was now lying in bloody pieces on the stairwell.

"Great," she said. "Now can we go? This place gives me the creeps."

"Sure, just got to grab one more thing..." Louis replied, shuffling toward the bathroom.

"What the hell are you doing?" Zoey sighed in exasperation.

"I just gotta see... Oh, man, I hope they have some..." the ex-business man said over his shoulder.

Her curiosity getting the better of her, Zoey followed him into the bathroom to see him rummaging through the cabinet behind the sink mirror.

"Ah, ha!" he cried triumphantly, turning and holding up a bottle of pain pills. "Grabbin' pills."

She could not help but chuckle as she followed Louis out of the bathroom. However, the momentary mood-lift was shattered when they found themselves staring down the barrel of Francis' shotgun.

"What the hell?" Louis cried out.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"Francis, what are you doing?" Zoey demanded, still not believing what she was seeing. "Put the gun down!"

"I didn't want it to come to this," the biker continued, keeping his voice controlled. "But you're infected. You're a danger to the rest of us."

"I'm NOT infected!" Louis cried in disbelief. "Please, let me explain!"

"Bill!" Zoey cried when the older man entered the room. "Do something!"

However, she was shocked when he just shook his head. "Francis and I have been talking, Zoey, and he brought up a valid point. Louis was clawed up. It could be in his system."

"Let me explain! I'm not infected!" Louis pleaded. "I'm immune! I've been bitten before!"

"Hmph," Francis snorted derisively. "You must be gettin' pretty desperate if you expect us to believe that."

"I can prove it!" the anxious man exclaimed, pulling up one of the sleeves on his new shirt. "There! Look!"

The others looked down to see a bite mark still visible on his forearm. The wound had obviously been quite nasty when he had first received it, but now it was healing up pretty nicely.

"...What are you saying?" Bill finally said after a prolonged silence.

"I'm saying that I got this bite almost two weeks ago, but I'm still human!"

"Alright, that's enough!" Zoey exclaimed, drawing a pistol and pointing it at the burly biker. "Put the gun down now, Francis!"

"No!" he roared. "He's infected! He has to – "

He never got the chance to finish his sentence. He felt the butt of Bill's rifle slamming into his head from the side, and then everything went dark.

Francis groggily awoke to find himself sitting in a dining room chair in the dark, ruined apartment. He tried to move, but a sharp pain shot through his head. It took him a moment to comprehend that his hands were tied behind his back. He tried to move his feet, but discovered that his ankles had also been bound together. He focused his eyes and saw Zoey, Bill and Louis standing a few feet away, conversing quietly.

"What the hell is this?" he growled. "Let me up!"

The other three turned when he spoke. Zoey came over and leaned forward. "We're sorry we had to do this, Francis. But you were out of control. You were going to kill Louis. We had to – "

"Shut up, bitch!" he spat angrily.

She was taken aback by his blunt response, and Bill cut in. "That's enough. We've been talking to Louis, and I think it's safe to say that he isn't going to be trying to eat us anytime soon."

Francis was too busy struggling with his bindings to answer.

"Listen, Francis," Louis said, coming over. "Before I met you three, I was with another group of people for a little while. Instead of heading for an evacuation zone, we holed up. They thought they could wait it out." He shot a sideways glance at his companions. "They couldn't."

"I'm NOT in the mood for sob stories!" the burly biker roared.

"Shut up!" Bill snapped suddenly. The force of his tone prompted everyone to go silent and look at him. "The Infected are attracted to noise, geniuses. So, Francis, if you carry on shouting and making a racket, we're going to gag you and leave you here."

Although he doubted that they would actually leave him behind, he opted to remain quiet.

Bill turned to address Zoey quietly. "Go watch the front door, in case this moron brought company for us. You know what to do."

She nodded quickly, and then turned and disappeared through a doorway.

Louis, meanwhile, continued with his story. "As I was saying, one of the guys I holed up with was a doctor. He said he'd worked on a number of cases of the Green Flu, before the shit hit the fan." He pulled up his shirt-sleeve to show Francis his bite wound again. "I got this a few days before I met the doc. My first encounter with the Infected..."

AUTHOR'S NOTES:

Thank you to everyone for the kind reviews so far! Reading them makes writing this story so much more enjoyable.

Oh, and I'll just say this now; credit for Louis' flashback in the next chapter goes to The Sacrifice comic.

FEEDBACK:

LynxbyLynx:

C: hang on..Only common infected attacked them?

A: Yep. I'm trying to make them seem more dangerous.